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Article STRAY THOUGHTS ABOUT BOOKS. ← Page 2 of 2 Article ARCHITECTURE AND ARCHÆOLOGY. Page 1 of 5 →
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Stray Thoughts About Books.
waxed tablets were termed styles . They were a kind of bodkin , formed of metal or ivory , one end of whicli was pointed for marking with , and the other blunt and flat , for the purpose of erasure . The Romans , carrying no arms within the city , often employed the stylus as a weapon in their quarrelswhence , perhapsthe Italian
, , stiletto . Iron styles , after some street affray in which thoy were used , were prohibited , aud only bone or ivory ones permitted . A species of reed or calamus , capable of containing a fluid , was used for writing upon paper or parchment . This was cut or split like our pens , producing , however , very rough strokes . Reeds are still
¦ employed by many ofthe Eastern nations . When quills were first used as writing instruments is unknown , but Aldelinus , the first Saxon poet , composed some verses in their honour . When Reuchlin was obliged to flee from his enemies , his friend Pirkheimer sent him , in 1520 , " some guyde papyre , " pen knives , and , instead of
the peacocks' feathers he had requested , a few swans ' quills , and also some reeds , of so excellent a quality that he supposed them to be Egyptian . These reeds must have been somewhat scarce , for we find Erasmus expressing a wish to obtain some from a friend in England .
Architecture And Archæology.
ARCHITECTURE AND ARCH ? OLOGY .
APPLICATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL TO DETAILS OF BUILDINGS . A lecture has just been delivered , before a crowded audience , at the Institution of Builders' Foremen and Clerks of AVorks , Lyoif s-inn , Strand , by Mr . G . E . Burnell , C . E .,
" On the Application of the Science of the Beautiful to the Common Details of Building . " Mr . Burnell said , — 'There are times when the choice of the subjects to be laid before meetings , such as the present one , does not entirely depend upon either the speaker or the audience , because certain questions will occasionally arise which so
powerfully arrest public attention as to compel all of us to investigate them to the utmost extent of our ability . Tho question of the nature and direction to be given to art-education , whether voluntary or endowed , seems , at the present day , to be essentially one of this description ; and you yourselves havo avowed that ono of the great objects of your Association is to provide for yourselves means for advancing your
knowledge of thc arts you are directly connected ivith . Now this knowledge you seek is of a very conrplex nature , being , in fact , quite as much of au abstract as of a technical character : and you must he aware that the practice of even
a mechanical art cannot be perfectly carried out unless the principles on ivhich it is based arc clearly understood by those who cultivate it . The building arts , in so far as they merit the title of arts , must be directed to tho satisfaction of the nobler tastes of our race , rather than to the more solution of the requirements of convenience and comfort of the parties who set you in operation ; and uniess thc works
you produce bear tho impress of thought and tho external characteristics of beauty , they will pass from tho nobler degrees of the scale to the lower one of the mere tradesman ' s productions . Perhaps it may not often fall to your lot to design the buildings upon which you are employed ; but even if this he so , it is not the less true that your power of appreciating thc artistic princiles of thc desiput before
p gn you , and of convoying thc whole amount of your knowledge and perception ofthe degree of beauty that design may contain , will be the best tests of your merit and of your claims fco be considered art-workmen . It behoves all of us , thenengineers , architects , and workmen—seriously to address ourselves to the investigation of the grave problems connected with tho application of the laivs of beauty to our
pursuits ; and especially so , inasmuch as art-education is noiv-a-days made a subject of such general discussion . It seems to me , also , that many of the prevalent opinions upon the subject of the laws of beauty and of their application , are not correct , and they are likely to do great mischief , unless at least challenged before an audience like j'ourselves , who are so deeply interested ; and it is for these reasons
that I have fett it almost imperative upon mo to invite you to inquire firstly , into the real nature ofthe quality , Beauty ; secondly , into its exhibition in building works ; and thirdly , into the best manner in which you , in your capacities of foremen and clerks of tho ivorks , can apply the principles wc may thus be enabled to ascertain . Beauty I consider to be an objective qualitinherent in
y , certain bodies , ivhich enables them to produce in our minds the sensation that tho external form of thoso bodies or things corresponds in an agreeable manner with the idea we have been able to assign to them . It is a quality producing sensation , mainly independent of ourselves , and essentially phenomenal , that is to say , that the external forms of bodies produce the harmony and proportions
which induce us to consider that they are in accord with the ideal perfection thoy aro intended to typify , and that physical beauty must be visible to the eye . It is in nowise connected with utility ; for many usefuf things , such as the vital organs of the human body , are , at first sight , essentially
repulsive , and , as being so , cannot be called beautiful ; whilst on the other hand , tho plumage of birds , or the form and colour of plants , frequently strike us as being remarkably beautiful , even though they havo no necessary connection with the discharge of tho vital functions of the existences to which they belong . But if beauty be thus to some extent independent of ourselves , its perception can only take 2 > lace
amongst thinking and intelligent beings ; and just precisely as we cultivate the faculties which enabled us to distinguish the mutual relations of thc forms and ideas ive consider , will be able to distinguish the beauty which they jiossess . Beauty does not exist for the brute creation : and amongst human beings thc keenness of the perception of beauty will vary with the circumstances which surround them , and
ivhich are able to influence their modes of thought . Education , in fact , increases in man the -faculty of receiving pleasure from beautiful objects , and thus it happens that opinions vary with respect to degrees and kinds of beauty ; but the attributes of the things or bodies under consideration , ivhich give rise to the sensation of the existence of beauty in themare parts of themand are
, , by no means conferred by the operations of tho observer ' s intellect . Beauty is objective , not subjective ; AVO feet it , we do not confer it by any act of our own minds ; and objects ivould be beautiful , if their external forms corresponded with their idea , even if there ivere no one to perceive the relation .
It may serve to illustrate this theory of beauty to trace the gradations which are usually considered to prevail in the seA-eral divisions of nature . Thus , in inorganic substances ( Avith resiiect to Avhich we are only able to form ideas of perfection as being connected AA'ith tho permanence of their combinations , thc regularity of their outlines , and the symmetry of the disposal of their molecules , the greatest
beauty is to be found in thchigher forms of crystallization ; and if at tne same time that the crystallization thus attains per fee regularity and symmetry , tho faces of the crystals should be able to reflect , refract , ov decompose rays of light striking them , a noiv source of beautiful effects is added . In the vegetable world the elements of beauty arc to be found in form and colourbut the forms admit of great
, freedom and variety of outline , and thc colours are apparently more directly produced by the plants themselves than are tho colours of crystalline bodies ; the fearful and wonderful idea of life also begins to thrust itself upon us AA'hen wc contemplate even the lowest forms of tho organic world , and the objects of these classes which manifest tho most perfect concord between their external forms and their
ideal perfection as organised bodies , become , from thc very fact of the extension of that ideal so as to include life , members of a higher category of beauty . In animals a series of new elements of ideal perfection intervenes , and the external forms can only be considered beautiful when
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Stray Thoughts About Books.
waxed tablets were termed styles . They were a kind of bodkin , formed of metal or ivory , one end of whicli was pointed for marking with , and the other blunt and flat , for the purpose of erasure . The Romans , carrying no arms within the city , often employed the stylus as a weapon in their quarrelswhence , perhapsthe Italian
, , stiletto . Iron styles , after some street affray in which thoy were used , were prohibited , aud only bone or ivory ones permitted . A species of reed or calamus , capable of containing a fluid , was used for writing upon paper or parchment . This was cut or split like our pens , producing , however , very rough strokes . Reeds are still
¦ employed by many ofthe Eastern nations . When quills were first used as writing instruments is unknown , but Aldelinus , the first Saxon poet , composed some verses in their honour . When Reuchlin was obliged to flee from his enemies , his friend Pirkheimer sent him , in 1520 , " some guyde papyre , " pen knives , and , instead of
the peacocks' feathers he had requested , a few swans ' quills , and also some reeds , of so excellent a quality that he supposed them to be Egyptian . These reeds must have been somewhat scarce , for we find Erasmus expressing a wish to obtain some from a friend in England .
Architecture And Archæology.
ARCHITECTURE AND ARCH ? OLOGY .
APPLICATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL TO DETAILS OF BUILDINGS . A lecture has just been delivered , before a crowded audience , at the Institution of Builders' Foremen and Clerks of AVorks , Lyoif s-inn , Strand , by Mr . G . E . Burnell , C . E .,
" On the Application of the Science of the Beautiful to the Common Details of Building . " Mr . Burnell said , — 'There are times when the choice of the subjects to be laid before meetings , such as the present one , does not entirely depend upon either the speaker or the audience , because certain questions will occasionally arise which so
powerfully arrest public attention as to compel all of us to investigate them to the utmost extent of our ability . Tho question of the nature and direction to be given to art-education , whether voluntary or endowed , seems , at the present day , to be essentially one of this description ; and you yourselves havo avowed that ono of the great objects of your Association is to provide for yourselves means for advancing your
knowledge of thc arts you are directly connected ivith . Now this knowledge you seek is of a very conrplex nature , being , in fact , quite as much of au abstract as of a technical character : and you must he aware that the practice of even
a mechanical art cannot be perfectly carried out unless the principles on ivhich it is based arc clearly understood by those who cultivate it . The building arts , in so far as they merit the title of arts , must be directed to tho satisfaction of the nobler tastes of our race , rather than to the more solution of the requirements of convenience and comfort of the parties who set you in operation ; and uniess thc works
you produce bear tho impress of thought and tho external characteristics of beauty , they will pass from tho nobler degrees of the scale to the lower one of the mere tradesman ' s productions . Perhaps it may not often fall to your lot to design the buildings upon which you are employed ; but even if this he so , it is not the less true that your power of appreciating thc artistic princiles of thc desiput before
p gn you , and of convoying thc whole amount of your knowledge and perception ofthe degree of beauty that design may contain , will be the best tests of your merit and of your claims fco be considered art-workmen . It behoves all of us , thenengineers , architects , and workmen—seriously to address ourselves to the investigation of the grave problems connected with tho application of the laivs of beauty to our
pursuits ; and especially so , inasmuch as art-education is noiv-a-days made a subject of such general discussion . It seems to me , also , that many of the prevalent opinions upon the subject of the laws of beauty and of their application , are not correct , and they are likely to do great mischief , unless at least challenged before an audience like j'ourselves , who are so deeply interested ; and it is for these reasons
that I have fett it almost imperative upon mo to invite you to inquire firstly , into the real nature ofthe quality , Beauty ; secondly , into its exhibition in building works ; and thirdly , into the best manner in which you , in your capacities of foremen and clerks of tho ivorks , can apply the principles wc may thus be enabled to ascertain . Beauty I consider to be an objective qualitinherent in
y , certain bodies , ivhich enables them to produce in our minds the sensation that tho external form of thoso bodies or things corresponds in an agreeable manner with the idea we have been able to assign to them . It is a quality producing sensation , mainly independent of ourselves , and essentially phenomenal , that is to say , that the external forms of bodies produce the harmony and proportions
which induce us to consider that they are in accord with the ideal perfection thoy aro intended to typify , and that physical beauty must be visible to the eye . It is in nowise connected with utility ; for many usefuf things , such as the vital organs of the human body , are , at first sight , essentially
repulsive , and , as being so , cannot be called beautiful ; whilst on the other hand , tho plumage of birds , or the form and colour of plants , frequently strike us as being remarkably beautiful , even though they havo no necessary connection with the discharge of tho vital functions of the existences to which they belong . But if beauty be thus to some extent independent of ourselves , its perception can only take 2 > lace
amongst thinking and intelligent beings ; and just precisely as we cultivate the faculties which enabled us to distinguish the mutual relations of thc forms and ideas ive consider , will be able to distinguish the beauty which they jiossess . Beauty does not exist for the brute creation : and amongst human beings thc keenness of the perception of beauty will vary with the circumstances which surround them , and
ivhich are able to influence their modes of thought . Education , in fact , increases in man the -faculty of receiving pleasure from beautiful objects , and thus it happens that opinions vary with respect to degrees and kinds of beauty ; but the attributes of the things or bodies under consideration , ivhich give rise to the sensation of the existence of beauty in themare parts of themand are
, , by no means conferred by the operations of tho observer ' s intellect . Beauty is objective , not subjective ; AVO feet it , we do not confer it by any act of our own minds ; and objects ivould be beautiful , if their external forms corresponded with their idea , even if there ivere no one to perceive the relation .
It may serve to illustrate this theory of beauty to trace the gradations which are usually considered to prevail in the seA-eral divisions of nature . Thus , in inorganic substances ( Avith resiiect to Avhich we are only able to form ideas of perfection as being connected AA'ith tho permanence of their combinations , thc regularity of their outlines , and the symmetry of the disposal of their molecules , the greatest
beauty is to be found in thchigher forms of crystallization ; and if at tne same time that the crystallization thus attains per fee regularity and symmetry , tho faces of the crystals should be able to reflect , refract , ov decompose rays of light striking them , a noiv source of beautiful effects is added . In the vegetable world the elements of beauty arc to be found in form and colourbut the forms admit of great
, freedom and variety of outline , and thc colours are apparently more directly produced by the plants themselves than are tho colours of crystalline bodies ; the fearful and wonderful idea of life also begins to thrust itself upon us AA'hen wc contemplate even the lowest forms of tho organic world , and the objects of these classes which manifest tho most perfect concord between their external forms and their
ideal perfection as organised bodies , become , from thc very fact of the extension of that ideal so as to include life , members of a higher category of beauty . In animals a series of new elements of ideal perfection intervenes , and the external forms can only be considered beautiful when